


in the pale moonlight

by Elefwin



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Gen, Mindfuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-23
Updated: 2011-04-23
Packaged: 2017-10-18 14:03:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/189637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elefwin/pseuds/Elefwin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a girl makes a pass at Kimblee, and Kimblee makes a pass at the girl, and everything is all right with the world...</p>
            </blockquote>





	in the pale moonlight

    Riza Hawkeye should have been sleeping. Cadet Hawkeye should have been sleeping, Riza Hawkeye shouldn't have come here at all. But she had, and tomorrow she was leaving, and tonight, too exhausted to sleep, she sat at the war's deathbed, sort of. It was stone-hard and stone-cold. The cadet was hugging her rifle: a puny human child clinging to a familiar symbol and illusion of safety. It fit.  
    In a strange numb way Riza wondered how the night -- calm, quiet, _peaceful_ you'd say -- was still ugly. Well, death wasn't pretty, was it? Riza looked this one in the face, too, its bone white and pitch-black empty face with a jagged, pitted quarter moon stuck to the dusty sky. She was glad when something moved out there -- someone alive. Then she recognized him and wasn't.  
    The man seemed restless -- the last man she would imagine losing sleep over anything. Anything that wasn't _work_ , that is. He circled the ruins, stared hungrily up, stared out into the desert, pressed his hands to his temples -- Riza wondered if he could trigger a reaction just like that, for a split second wished he would, caught herself tracking him.  
    "Major Kimblee, you make a perfect target," she whispered out loud.  
    Kimblee stopped then, but didn't try to take cover.  
    "Why, miss sniper, you think there's someone left out there?"  
    Sound carries weirdly in the ruins; she sounded like an echo impossible to place, he sounded hopeful.  
    "Twenty percent of the officers killed, as Colonel Grand said..."  
    "Ah. But you're not my subordinate, Cadet."  
    If he called her by name Riza might _want_ to shoot him. Sand and gravel crunched under her boots. He did make a perfect target. The air itself around Major Kimblee was restless, seemed to tremble and hum and prickle the skin. Riza stared at Kimblee's hands, shoved deep into his pockets, and wondered.  
    "Numbers don't matter," Kimblee was saying. "When you think of home, there's always more, and there's always a convenient war going on somewhere, and those who wonder -- and those who know and care not. It's like a grand score, Cadet..." He turned, perfectly poised. She was a few steps behind him, grave and grim, with the rifle slung over her shoulder. "Don't _you_ wonder whether it ends in a whisper or in a beautiful... big... bang?"  
    Riza recoiled, but not fast enough. Kimblee took her by the hands -- his were warm, firm and dry, -- and _twirled_ , rifle and everything. And for something like a second she heard -- felt -- the music he spoke of, the great vast thunder echoing in heart and bone --  
    "Come on, miss Hawk's Eye, we got the job done, we deserve the fireworks," Kimblee said, and they danced to it.  
    Riza was surprised she could, even more surprised when she liked it, but then it also fit -- precise sweeping steps, flying colors, Kimblee's jagged quarter moon grin and flat eyes. He was a perfect dancing partner, attentive and confident, and if she was mad enough to trust his lead -- if they ended up too close for comfort, if their lips pressed together in that final movement it was because the dance demanded so...  
    Riza slapped him so hard her hand stung. Then she spat and wiped her mouth, for there was a taste, not unpleasant or foul, but if madness had a taste that must have been it, and Cadet Hawkeye wanted none of it. Kimblee stared at her, stunned, blinking hard, holding a hand to his lips and not to his burning face -- well, she did not care. She turned her back on perhaps the most dangerous man around and stomped away.  
    Kimblee watched her go. When Cadet Hawkeye could no longer hear him, for she would get him wrong, he laughed softly. With a bang indeed.  
    Cadet Riza Hawkeye had not been anywhere near the HQ next day and thus missed the fireworks.


End file.
